ZKM

Jun 18, 2025

As the number of zkVMs continues to grow, the choice facing developers is no longer whether to use one - but rather which to use. With an ever-growing number of zkVMs offering different tradeoffs, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to tell which zkVM actually delivers what matters.

At ZKM, we’ve taken a different approach: rather than targeting as many integrations as possible, our focus is on a few truly high-quality applications that can scale across architectures, chains, and domains.

This piece is all about why ZKM may also be the right foundation for what you’re building.

MIPS ISA: A Stable, Portable Target

Unlike RISC-V or custom bytecodes, MIPS is a mature, stable instruction set architecture that is easy to compile to and reason about. It’s been used in production hardware and software systems for decades.

Toolchain Maturity: You can use standard Rust without needing to learn custom compilers or bytecode environments.
Low Abstraction Overhead: The instruction set is simple, predictable, and has a clear mapping to constraints - making performance optimization easier.
Smaller circuit footprint: Denser opcodes result in fewer instructions and simpler decoding logic.
Hardware-Aware: MIPS is compatible with emulation and co-processor integrations, which is critical for our next phase of GPU acceleration.

The choice of the MIPS instruction set isn’t aesthetic. It reflects a deliberate tradeoff: MIPS enables clean constraint systems, highly parallelizable logic, and predictable performance on real workloads. It also aligns well with upcoming acceleration targets such as GPU-based proving.‍

Now Prover-Optimized

With its recent pipeline upgrades, our 1.0 version is optimized for fast, scalable proof generation, outperforming many general-purpose zkVMs across standard workloads:

Fibonacci, SHA2, SHA3, and memory-intensive benchmarks show ZKM outperforming SP1 and RISC Zero (v2.0.1) on AWS r6a.8xlarge.
Our upcoming GPU-enabled prover will further improve proof generation times and enable real-world usage for apps with latency sensitivity.

For a benchmarking vs other leading zkVMs across CPU, see https://www.zkm.io/blog/zkmips-1-0-benchmarking-the-fastest-zkvm-on-cpu

Our next major release will include GPU acceleration for proof generation, enabling the capability to power high-throughput applications.

This update addresses one of the biggest bottlenecks for developers today: proof generation costs. GPU proving slashes runtime and compute overhead, enabling support of latency-sensitive use cases like real-time settlement, high-frequency trading, and composable applications.

Designed for Modularity and Developer-Centric Simplicity

Our zkVM provides a general-purpose computation layer that can integrate with any chain, proof system, or co-processor.

Chain Agnostic: Can be deployed to Ethereum, Bitcoin (via BitVM2), modular L2s, and support coming for more L1s.
Co-Processor Friendly: Engineered for recursive composition and TEE/MPC delegation.
Proof System Flexibility: Though initially based on STARKs, the architecture is modular enough to support Groth16 or Plonk-style backends.

It has also been designed to minimize friction for developers:

Write standard Rust code.
Compile directly to MIPS.
Use our zkMIPS SDK to generate proofs or deploy smart contracts with verifiers.

There’s no need to learn a new domain-specific language or deal with complex bytecode structures - everything is deterministic, debuggable, and inspectable.

Depth Over Hype

While other zkVMs seek rapid integrations for visibility, ZKM prioritizes depth. We focus on a small number of high-impact deployments where we can integrate tightly and support fully.

GOAT Network exemplifies this. It’s not another generic Bitcoin L2 - it introduces a decentralized sequencer model with sustainable, native BTC yield. Our zkVM isn’t just plugged in; it’s co-engineered.

This approach enables:

Architectural integration: ZKM sits at the protocol core.
Full-stack support: We collaborate on provers, verification, and optimization.
Performance alignment: Block time, cost, and latency tuned from day one.

Fewer integrations. Higher fidelity. Real usage, not surface-level support.

As developers shift from asking “Can I integrate this?” to “Is this built to last?”, we think the answer will increasingly favor focused, production-grade zkVM deployments like ours.

Proof Markets Will Decide - We’re Ready for That

We’re not claiming our zkVM is better in every way. Each has its own strengths. But as proof markets mature and systems begin choosing zkVMs dynamically based on workload, cost, and latency, we believe ZKM will prove to be one of the most cost-efficient, high-throughput options available.

Very few other zkVMs can offer:

A clear and stable instruction set architecture
Proof generation at practical cost and latency
Deep integration with real protocols solving hard problems in a uniquely optimal way
Transparent engineering focus on scale, not optics

The goal isn't to win in every category - but to be the best choice for the high-quality applications that demand real performance, deeper integration, and closer support.

If you’re just experimenting with proofs, any zkVM will do. But if you’re building production-grade, cross-domain, performance-sensitive ZK applications - ZKM is ready to go.

Get started with ZKM: ZKM Docs

Build with ZKM: ZKM Github

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Experience in the fast-paced and dynamic work culture of an international team
Excellent growth opportunity as your role expands in direct relation to the growth of your region’s participation/involvement/adoption
Learn about the Metis ecosystem and its products

1. Metis Technical Advocate
2. Metis Community Advocate

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Hello World - November Newsletter

zkGM and welcome to our latest edition of the ZKM Newsletter, where we bring you all the key updates, highlights, and behind-the-scenes insights from our activities from the past month.‍

Hybrid Rollup — A Bird’s Eye View

by Ming Guo, ZKM Chief Scientist The need for speed On the blockchain timeline, Ethereum has been around for ages, in the process evolving into the most widely used network — by a mile. Still, many challenges remain. By enabling decentralized application-building, Ethereum has fueled floods of user interest in popular dApps, only to…

MIPS ISA: A Stable, Portable Target

Toolchain Maturity: You can use standard Rust without needing to learn custom compilers or bytecode environments.
Low Abstraction Overhead: The instruction set is simple, predictable, and has a clear mapping to constraints - making performance optimization easier.
Smaller circuit footprint: Denser opcodes result in fewer instructions and simpler decoding logic.
Hardware-Aware: MIPS is compatible with emulation and co-processor integrations, which is critical for our next phase of GPU acceleration.

Now Prover-Optimized

With its recent pipeline upgrades, our 1.0 version is optimized for fast, scalable proof generation, outperforming many general-purpose zkVMs across standard workloads:

Fibonacci, SHA2, SHA3, and memory-intensive benchmarks show ZKM outperforming SP1 and RISC Zero (v2.0.1) on AWS r6a.8xlarge.
Our upcoming GPU-enabled prover will further improve proof generation times and enable real-world usage for apps with latency sensitivity.

For a benchmarking vs other leading zkVMs across CPU, see https://www.zkm.io/blog/zkmips-1-0-benchmarking-the-fastest-zkvm-on-cpu

Our next major release will include GPU acceleration for proof generation, enabling the capability to power high-throughput applications.

Designed for Modularity and Developer-Centric Simplicity

Our zkVM provides a general-purpose computation layer that can integrate with any chain, proof system, or co-processor.

Chain Agnostic: Can be deployed to Ethereum, Bitcoin (via BitVM2), modular L2s, and support coming for more L1s.
Co-Processor Friendly: Engineered for recursive composition and TEE/MPC delegation.
Proof System Flexibility: Though initially based on STARKs, the architecture is modular enough to support Groth16 or Plonk-style backends.

It has also been designed to minimize friction for developers:

Write standard Rust code.
Compile directly to MIPS.
Use our zkMIPS SDK to generate proofs or deploy smart contracts with verifiers.

There’s no need to learn a new domain-specific language or deal with complex bytecode structures - everything is deterministic, debuggable, and inspectable.

Depth Over Hype

While other zkVMs seek rapid integrations for visibility, ZKM prioritizes depth. We focus on a small number of high-impact deployments where we can integrate tightly and support fully.

This approach enables:

Architectural integration: ZKM sits at the protocol core.
Full-stack support: We collaborate on provers, verification, and optimization.
Performance alignment: Block time, cost, and latency tuned from day one.

Fewer integrations. Higher fidelity. Real usage, not surface-level support.

As developers shift from asking “Can I integrate this?” to “Is this built to last?”, we think the answer will increasingly favor focused, production-grade zkVM deployments like ours.

Proof Markets Will Decide - We’re Ready for That

Very few other zkVMs can offer:

A clear and stable instruction set architecture
Proof generation at practical cost and latency
Deep integration with real protocols solving hard problems in a uniquely optimal way
Transparent engineering focus on scale, not optics

Get started with ZKM: ZKM Docs

Build with ZKM: ZKM Github

MIPS ISA: A Stable, Portable Target

Now Prover-Optimized

Designed for Modularity and Developer-Centric Simplicity

​​Depth Over Hype

Proof Markets Will Decide - We’re Ready for That

H1

h2

h3

H4

H5

What’s a Rich Text element?

Static and dynamic content editing

How to customize formatting for each rich text

Headings, paragraphs,

MIPS ISA: A Stable, Portable Target

Now Prover-Optimized

Designed for Modularity and Developer-Centric Simplicity

​​Depth Over Hype

Proof Markets Will Decide - We’re Ready for That

Depth Over Hype

Depth Over Hype